


In a Dark, Dark Room

by Sp00py



Series: A Study in Snuffering [10]
Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine, Mumintroll | Moomins Series - Tove Jansson
Genre: Broken Bones, Dress Up, Drowning, Gratuitous Torture, Horror, Implied pedophilia, Mind Control, Other, Reality Warping, Sacrifice, Skinning, Suicide, Surreal, Tooth Trauma, Transformation, Undeath, Wound Fucking, in that there’s a Snufkin OC, noncon, suffocation, tags to be updated as needed, this is only tangentially Moomin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-06-15 02:56:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15403413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sp00py/pseuds/Sp00py
Summary: A Snufkin finds his way into Joey Drew Studios. He makes a friend. It goes very, very poorly.





	1. Chapter 1

Snufkins, universally, hated signs. They hated signs declaring places this and that. They hated signs saying NO TRESPASSING or DO NOT ENTER. They hated signs that did all of these things and more.

This particular Snufkin was much like every other Snufkin in this regard. He knew who he was, knew what he liked and didn’t like. He was a small Snufkin, as many often were, with black paws and a thin, black tail, and wore pale greens like sea foam or forest mist, depending on his mood, stained with paints. His hat and tail both had a bow, and he seemed very cheery, always whistling. He was even cheerier at the prospect of disregarding signs.

The gate’s sign read JOEY DREW STUDIOS, and over that sign, another had been nailed. NO ENTRY.

Snufkin had never seen an invitation laid out so clearly before.

He had glimpsed old reruns of the cartoons drawn by Joey Drew Studios through people’s windows and looked forward to this chance to poke around where it had been made. Though it was always sad, too, going through the trash of people’s hopes and dreams.

He crept through the fence, and slithered his way up to the boarded over doorway. Snufkin reached his small arm through a gap in the boards and tried the lock.

The door swung open. Snufkin was immediately assaulted by the stink of ink. He yanked his scarf up over his nose and almost turned around right there, but found himself curious. What sort of place would have this much ink? He could hear something wet and slapping further in, like water.

Tail curling and uncurling in excitement at this mystery, Snufkin tied his scarf up around his nose and ducked into the studio. The door eased shut on its own weight behind him.

Snufkin let his eyes adjust. The lights were still on, but dim, making every shadow thick and heavy. Strange. And as soon as he was inside, he could pick up more sounds like water.

He immediately began exploring.

The first thing he saw down a hall were posters and a gushing fountain of ink, flowing from the ceiling. Snufkin reached out a paw to touch it, having trouble believing it was real, and some splattered on his fingers, proving that it truly was there. It would explain the water noises, though. Maybe he just had a very, very wrong idea of what went into drawing these cartoons, and they really  _ did  _ need this much ink. It was probably no good for any animals or plants that might like to move in, so Snufkin resolved to find a way to turn off the flow (and maybe bottle a bit for himself, if he could. Art wasn’t cheap). He wiped the ink onto his coat, leaving long, dark smears.

Snufkin continued onward, reading the posters for the Dancing Demon and Sheep Songs and other episodes, as well as posters declaring “Work Hard Work Happy” which he didn’t agree with at all, and frankly found a little creepy. There were things he expected or could figure out their uses, like slanted drawing tables showing half-finished movements, lamps, pencils and pens. Even the cutouts of Bendy, which stood a little taller than Snufkin, made a certain sort of sense. People loved to market anything they could. Snufkin hated that, but expected it. Business was business.

The words DREAMS COME TRUE scrawled on the walls in thick, dripping ink were less expected. He pondered this a long, long moment, then backed away. Teenagers, homeless, there was bound to be a perfectly good explanation. He listed them in his head, trying to make himself believe it.

A sign pointed out this was the direction for the ink machine, but Snufkin was less and less sure he wanted to find it and turn it off. His tail was curling into knots of anxiety now, and suddenly the walls, the stink of the ink, was all too much. It overwhelmed him. Something was wrong here. Very, very wrong.

He turned to run toward the entrance and leave, and instead crashed right into one of the Bendy cutouts. Snufkin shrieked and bounced back as though it was alive.  _ That hadn’t been there before _ . He instinctively ran in the other direction, fell over a pipe laid across the hall, tasted blood in his mouth. The pain was a jolt back to his senses. Panic wouldn’t get him out of here.

Snufkin shoved himself to his feet and snuck back to the corner. He peeked warily around it. The Bendy cutout was upright, grinning in the middle of the hall. Snufkin backed away and looked where the hall he’d run down led. It opened immediately and he felt a little better, until his eyes alighted on the gaping dark hole. If that strange writing had given him a bad feeling, seeing that hole was like sinking into a quagmire.

He retreated back to the hall.

“Hello?” Snufkin called out, hoping someone else was in the abandoned building and just playing a mean joke. “Your humor has something to be desired!”

Feeling a little braver, he slipped past the cutout unmolested and ran for the entrance.

Snufkin leapt at the door. It wouldn’t open. He yanked, beat at it, tried locking and unlocking it, called out for anyone. When his knife snapped in the hinges, Snufkin stepped back and glared.

Movement.

He spun around. The studio’s lobby was empty, lights flickering weakly. Buildings like this had other entrances. Had vents, windows, places he could make an exit if needed.

Snufkin took a deep breath, choked on the smell, and stepped back into the studio. There had been another hall, past the writing on the wall, past the cutout.

The Bendy cutout wasn’t there when Snufkin returned. He tried not to think on that.

Nearly every door was locked, and those that weren’t led only to storage closets and rooms without windows. Though he knew he was still on the same level, Snufkin felt like he was descending into hell. Every scrawled HE WILL SAVE US, every strange flicker of light under doors he couldn’t get to, every cutout he passed that felt like it was watching him with its flat, black eyes, left a trail of pinprick nerves down his spine.

When he came across a sign labeled Exit, and it pointed at a closed door, he decided that he absolutely was in hell. Doubting it would work, Snufkin tried the door. It swung open into a stairwell dripping ink from above. Another door stood across from him. Good, but he was still wary. Snufkin stepped onto the landing and peeked over the railing. The stairwell descended down, down into darkness. Up higher all he could see were dripping pipes tangled up like some morbid nest.

But there was a doorway that might, he hoped, be unlocked. He waded in, determined. The floor seemed to sag under the weight of the ink. It was up to his ankles and dragged at his boots, thick and viscous, glistening darkly in the sodium glow.

Nothing about the way it sat suggested it was listing so badly as to be a slide until Snufkin stepped forward, slipped and plunged down the stairwell. His scream was swallowed up by the ink.

Snufkin fell and fell, then hit a landing with a wet splat. He gasped, winded, and tried to stand too soon, sending everything spinning.  There was just so much  _ ink _ everywhere. It trailed down the stairs, puddled at his feet, soaked into his clothes. Snufkin needed to get away from it.

He fumbled for a door and stumbled out into a blessedly ink-free hallway. Here, Snufkin could breath. A bit. He pulled down his scarf and slumped against a wall. Everything felt so closed in, despite that it was built for humans a good two to three feet taller than him. No windows, no air, just ink and more ink.

Movement, again, just out of the corner of his eye. Snufkin braced himself for another one of those cutouts as he let his gaze flicker to the left.

Instead, someone was standing there, someone taller than Snufkin, taller than the cutout. He looked like a dog, and was holding cans in his arms.

Snufkin made a noise of surprise. He’d accepted that he was all alone and this place just had ghosts or something, but here was another living person! “Hello!” Snufkin said, then was overtaken by coughing. His lungs still ached, his body still protested after such a rough landing. The dog person watched him with that vacant stare only found in those lucky enough to never have anything to say. “Are you stuck here too?” Snufkin gasped.

Nothing.

“Right. Do you know any way to an exit?”

Nothing.

Snufkin sighed. That was fine, he could find his own way out. Maybe he could climb back to the exit in the stairwell.

The door was locked. Snufkin said some very impolite things. A few oath bugs slipped free and drifted away like angry little scribbles.

He turned to regard the dog person again. He seemed familiar, if a little lopsided. “Oh! You’re Boris. From the posters.” Snufkin hadn’t realized the cartoons were based on actual people, but saw no reason to question it. Most of his stories were things that actually happened, too.  “Have you been moving these things around?” He asked, pointing at one of the cutouts.

Nothing.

Probably not, Snufkin decided. Boris didn’t seem that fast or that mean. He started walking and Boris followed at his heels. If he wanted to follow, that was fine. This was an unnerving place to be in on one’s own. Even if one was supposed to be here, very much unlike Snufkin. And, rarely for a Snufkin, he found he appreciated the company.

There were more and more signs of cult activity (the large pentagram-esque figure smeared across the floors and walls being the most obvious hint) the farther Snufkin wound and wandered. Boris followed along behind him.

This, Snufkin decided, was very much not a normal animation studio. He felt like he was miles underground, had fallen down and down into some chasm. Puddles bubbled and splattered all around, Snufkin was smeared in ink, smothered. He was miserable.

They entered an open area with a sign: Music Department. Music had always made him feel better. Even if he felt it’d be wholly wasted here, Snufkin pursed his lips and let a whistle sound, clear and sharp in the stifling gloom. He got a few notes out before Boris’s large hand came to rest on his shoulder. Snufkin gave a strangled little cry of surprise.

Once he stopped, the hand fell away. Okay, so no whistling. Nothing nice was allowed here, he guessed, except for Boris. Snufkin let his gaze flit over the various signs. He hated them the more he saw of them, especially as none said EXIT.

Snufkin walked further in, Boris behind him. They walked past MUSIC DEPARTMENT, and it took Snufkin several more steps to realize something was wrong. Boris’s footprints, a quiet padding that he’d quickly grown accustomed to, were absent. He turned around.

“Boris!”

Things — Snufkin wasn’t sure what they were, ink shaped vaguely into human-looking bodies — had bubbled up and grabbed Boris who, as he’d always done, had made not a noise. He cowered and shook, though, which hurt Snufkin more than expected. The poor thing was terrified, like a rabbit caught in a snare. His cans of soup clattered out of his arms.

Snufkin ran over and tried to pry one of the things off of him, paws sinking into them and coming away with globs of ink. It was futile He yelled for them to stop, moved instead to trying to pull Boris away. He broke free and Snufkin pulled him back to the hall.

In the minutes that they’d not been there, it had flooded. Snufkin glanced over his shoulder. The ink monsters were dragging their heaving, dark bodies toward them.

“I know you’re not big on talking, dear, but if you know another way out, that would be wonderful,” Snufkin told Boris, who simply quivered. Snufkin looked at the ink in the hall. He really didn’t want to go into it. It seemed things changed every time he turned his back, flooding or unlocking or  _ moving.  _ Nothing here was stable, nothing could be trusted.

Snufkin left Boris a moment to try a door. Locked. Another. Locked. And when he tried to pull Boris into the hall, the dog just cowered more and refused to move.

“We are going to  _ die _ , dear,” Snufkin said desperately. “You have to move or —“

He didn’t get a chance to list any other options as the ink monster grabbed at his coat. Snufkin yanked it back, stumbled into the hall. He tripped and fell face-first into ink and came up sputtering. It was so deep in the hall, so vile in his mouth.

There was a wet snapping noise. Snufkin whipped around. They’d grabbed Boris again, and were digging their inky claws into his — Snufkin cringed — into his arms and chest and eyes.

“Stop stop stop!” Snufkin yelled, clambering toward them. He was easily smacked away. The next time he tried to get up, he found his arms trapped in the ink. All he could do was watch.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” a cheery voice said.

Snufkin looked to his right. A little creature stood in the ink, almost to his waist. It was Bendy, but something seemed very, very wrong with him. Snufkin didn’t have time to wonder what, though.

“Help him, please!” he begged, yanking against the ink.

“Why? This is great! They don’t usually go after Borises,” Bendy said, eyes riveted on the sight. Snufkin couldn’t look away either. They were ripping him apart. “I guess since he wasn’t quite  _ right,  _ y’know. But I’m getting there.”

“Please,” Snufkin said, finally squeezing his eyes shut. He’d seen ribs cracked, white in the black of the ink. There were organs in there, blood black in the poor lighting. He wasn’t just ink, not like those things.

“Hey, maybe you wanna be another Boris?” Bendy asked, ignoring Snufkin’s plea. “You’re kinda small, though. Ah, I’ll figure out something fun for ya. Oh, look! They’re done.”

Snufkin risked opening one eye. Boris lay in pieces, connected by ink or blood, smeared across the floor. His eyes had turned to Xs that oozed ink. Snufkin swallowed down a sick feeling. He felt like this was somehow his fault. The ink monsters were staring at him, now, roiling in the doorway.

“You should probably run,” Bendy said, before he sank down into the ink.

As soon as Bendy vanished, Snufkin could move. He scrambled to his feet, dragged himself through the ink. It was so thick, so encumbering. His heart pounded loud enough to hear in his ears, breathing came sharp and painful. The hallway went on for what felt like an eternity, nothing but ink up to his shins. He couldn’t move fast enough. He was going to get caught. He was going to be ripped apart, he was —

Snufkin tried a door. It opened, and he fell inside, slammed it shut behind him. He could hear the ink monsters sloshing just outside. They hit the door a few times. Snufkin fell against a shelf, then slumped to the floor. Tears were winding warm tracks through the ink spattered on his face.

He fully expected them to slip in through the cracks and kill him, but silence fell instead. The floor here was dry, though ink dripped in a thin line from the ceiling. A Bendy cutout was propped against the wall.

Snufkin kicked out angrily with his boot, and the cutout toppled over onto him. He shrieked, scuffled around a bit under it, and managed to shove it off. Defeated, Snufkin crawled into a corner and curled up into a miserable little ball to cry.

“I think you’re too small for Boris,” Bendy said from across the closet. “Wanna be an angel, instead? Ya like music, yeah? I heard you whistling.”

Snufkin wondered if he was hallucinating all this. He wiped his eyes and found Bendy in the gloom. The little devil was sitting on a box. He was twisted up and bad in ways Snufkin couldn’t see, but felt in his gut.

“What’s wrong with you? What’s wrong with this place?”

“Wow, rude,” Bendy said, though the toothy smile never left his face. “I’m just trying to make art, pal. Y’know, some people would be downright honored to be a part of my little project.”

“I just want to leave.”

“Maybe ya shoulda thought of that before ya came in here, hmmm? Before ya got poor Boris murdered.”

Snufkin started to cry again, quietly. Boris must have been so scared. Snufkin was scared, now. Being in the same room as Bendy, just talking to him, made his tail tremble. There was something impossibly wrong. Bendy shouldn’t exist at all, he was unnatural and evil. And he was just  _ talking _ to Snufkin, as though everything was fine.

Snufkin’s tail wrapped around his boot as he curled up tighter and buried his face in his knees.

“Ah! What’s that?” Bendy asked. Before Snufkin could figure out what he meant, something was yanking on his tail.

“Don’t!” Snufkin pulled his tail back, held it protectively in his paws.

“You have a tail! I want a tail. A devil should have one, yeah?” As soon as he spoke, a tail melted its way from around Bendy, ending with a spade-tip. He swayed it back and forth, then cracked it like a whip, causing Snufkin to flinch.

“Yeesh, you’re jumpy. Hm. Mischievous, small, jumpy, whistles….” his eyes lit up. “I know who you could be. My last one was a  _ disaster _ , but I’m sure I’ll get it right this time.” Bendy’s smile grew wider. “After some fun.”

Snufkin had no clue what he was talking about, and decided he didn’t want to know. Bendy hopped down from the box and walked over to Snufkin. He barely dodged the kick Snufkin sent his way and grabbed Snufkin’s tail, ripping it out of his grip. He jerked on it, earning a sharp cry of pain.

“How ‘bout a game, uh…” Bendy trailed off, waiting for Snufkin to supply a name.

Snufkin said nothing. Bendy tugged his tail again. “S-Snufkin.” It was close enough to a name.

“Hah, what a weird name. So this game is like tag. Ever heard of it? It’s real easy: you have to try to find an exit; me ‘n’ those ink guys out there will be trying to find  _ you.  _ Make it to the exit, you’re free to go. Don’t, well, ya saw what happened t’ that Boris.”

Snufkin didn’t want to play any games, but there was no other option he could see. This was Bendy’s realm, some hellscape of ink and yellow light, making everything look sketchy and drawn. Maybe they were actually just drawn on. Maybe everything was something made by Bendy, as easily as he made a tail. Maybe Snufkin wasn’t even himself. He shook his head. No, he  _ was _ a Snufkin, he knew that very well. And he wouldn’t be anyone else.

“No?” Bendy asked. “You don’t wanna play?”

“No, I don’t want to be… whatever you want me to be,” Snufkin said. He’d find the exit, he’d get out. Supernatural creatures, in his experience, liked challenge, so often played fair. “I’ll play your game.”

“That’s great! You’re way more fun than a lot of the humans ‘round here. They mostly just mope and cry and want to go home, except for a few…” Bendy trailed off, apparently thinking on those few.

Snufkin wiped at his face again, preparing himself for what he felt was an improbable (but, he hoped, not impossible) game.

“I’ll give you a minute’s head start. Oh, and be careful of the other Bendy.”

Snufkin barely heard the warning as he was already at the door. He wanted  _ away _ from Bendy. The hall was still flooded, and the ink sloshed into the closet. Bendy was already gone by the time Snufkin made it out, and he refused to go back the way he came, back to where Boris —

Snufkin went the opposite direction. If there were stairs, there was probably a lift, right?

The ink got deeper. It was up to his knees. Snufkin clawed his way through. It was like running in a dream: pointless. All the Bendy cutouts had their eyes closed, now, as though Bendy had been watching him this entire time. He had. He knew. He was playing with Snufkin like a cat. Snufkin’s breath picked up. No, he couldn’t panic now. He’d never been prone to panic before on his many adventures, but here and now, everything was miasmic and spiraling far, far out of control. He’d never seen nor felt anything like it before.

A minute vanished as quickly as a blink, and soon Snufkin realized just  _ how _ stacked the odds were against him. There was nothing but ink in every direction, pouring from the ceiling, drowning out his own breathing in the splatter and splash. He ran every direction that wasn’t blocked, frantically searching for an exit.

Those monsters bubbled up from the tarry depths, and Snufkin felt fingers brush at his tail. He managed to slog his way away from them in time, but his heart was racing, his breath came ragged and sharp. Like wading through shallows, Snufkin fought through the ink. Tears blurred his vision, born of frustration and fright. He could feel them just behind him, just out of sight, and there wasn’t an exit. He was suddenly gripped by the fear that there never had been, and this was just some horrible, morbid joke.

Something broke and crashed down just behind him. Snufkin fell onto his hands and knees. He crawled, dragged himself back to his feet, didn’t even look to see what had fallen. He couldn’t think like that. There had to be some hope of escape. What good was a game without actual stakes?

He wiped ink from his eyes and struggled onward. Something large, larger than the other monsters, sloshed behind him. A glance. A new spike of fear shot down his spine, and he almost tripped again.

Bendy, a Bendy so unlike the one before but very much his design, lurched through the ink after him. Taller than Snufkin, body emaciated, head bulbous and misshapen, more animalistic than cartoon. Bendy had inspired some innate dread in Snufkin, something primal and indescribable, but this one inspired only fear and revulsion. It terrified him for a very different reason.

Snufkin was going to get caught. He was going to be touched by that thing. It would rip him apart, some mindless, ink-soaked beast. The lamps were being covered in ink, darkening.

But then light — not the strange light of the lamps but natural, bright sunlight — poured over him. Everything screamed at him that this was wrong, he was too far down, it had been night, it was a trap. It was dangerous. But it was an exit. Snufkin reached for the door.

His legs were yanked out from under him.  _ Nonono it wasn’t fair — _

He swallowed ink. Came up gasping. Hands shoved him under again. Oh god, he was drowning.

He twisted around to ward off the hands, and was met with the malformed, dripping face of not-Bendy. Some parody of Bendy. The ink monsters themselves were keeping their distance from it, letting it have their prey.

It shoved him under the ink again.

Snufkin didn’t want to die. He was going to anyway. In this dark, cold, impossible place.

He sobbed and choked on ink. The world was blackness and nothingness.

He was dying.

He wasn’t being held down. Snufkin didn’t realize it at first in his panic, but suddenly there weren’t hands on him.

Snufkin jerked up, sucked down gulps of vile, beautiful chemical-stained air, before coughing up ink. He was entirely alone. Or so he thought, at first.

Once he got his breathing under control, he looked around for that Bendy creature. First glance, Snufkin saw nothing. The darkness had abated, leaving the same yellow light as though nothing had changed.

He saw the body. It lay half-submerged in the ink, nauseatingly tangled up into itself, its grin fixed. Like with Boris, Snufkin could see the white of bone. It was like the creature had been taken and  _ twisted _ , then discarded like so much refuse. He swallowed, trying not to vomit.

Someone was laughing.

It took a moment to find Bendy in all the ink, but he was off a little to Snufkin’s left.

“Whew, boy, ya almost made it, kid! Good job,” Bendy said, grin static but just feeling wider. “If my little mess-up there hadn’t gotten you, you’d be home free.”

The exit. Snufkin twisted around. The door behind him was just another door. Closed, probably locked.

Bendy poked him, like he was tagging Snufkin it. “Boop. It’s gone now. You had your chance.”

Snufkin bit his tongue on any claims of unfairness. It’d just amuse this horrid little monster, he was sure.

“You should really be thanking me, though,” Bendy continued. “My mess-up, he’s — well he was — real brutal. I told ya to avoid him.”

“How could you do that?”

Bendy came closer. “I said you should be thanking me. Unless you want me to put him back together?”

Snufkin said nothing. The ink around him tensed, and he knew, he  _ knew _ what he was doing was fundamentally stupid. He tried to back away, only for the ink to tighten around his arms and legs. Any thought of speaking lodged in his throat.

He hadn’t escaped. He couldn’t escape, not now.

“Aw, why are ya cryin’ ya big weenie? It’s just a lil ‘thank you’. It won’t kill ya.”

Gloved fingers that felt not at all like gloves yanked Snufkin’s head up. A thumb brushed over the split in his lip, opening it again. The ink on his arms and legs squeezed painfully.

“Say it, Snufkin.”

Snufkin pursed his lips and shook his head. He didn’t want to give in to this creature, this nightmare. It was irrational, he should just thank him and be let loose, but everything was nonsensical now. He couldn’t hope to predict what Bendy would do.

Bendy thumbed his lip until blood smeared across his glove in thin, red streaks. His tongue slipped out of the gaping blackness behind his teeth to lick at it. He was tasting Snufkin. And from the sound he made, enjoying it. Snufkin shuddered. He wanted Bendy away from him, far enough to stop his skin from crawling.

“Th-thank you,” he gasped out. “Thank you, Bendy.”

The ink around his body slackened, and Snufkin collapsed into it, limbs shaking. His tail curled up sluggishly in the liquid, wrapped nervously around his thigh.

“I like the way that sounds.” Bendy walked around Snufkin, moving through the ink as though it was nothing but air, circling him like a shark. “You’re welcome. But you  _ did  _ get caught.”

Snufkin’s pale eyes flitted about instinctively for those ink monsters. He could already imagine them digging into his limbs, ripping —

“Don’t worry, they won’t be dealing with ya, either.” He paused, expectantly.

 

Snufkin breathed heavily, trying to figure out what he wanted. “Thank you?” he asked tentatively.

 

“There ya go. You like fun, right?”

Snufkin had the creeping sensation that he was going to wish he had died. Though he wasn’t sure if even that would save him. What had Bendy said?  _ Unless you want me to put him back together _ so nonchalantly. Like death meant nothing. Snufkin glanced at the other Bendy.

“Hey, no, don’t look at him —“ as Snufkin watched, the body sank down into the ink. “He’s gone now, you’re safe with me.”

“Am I?” Snufkin asked weakly, turning his attention back to Bendy.

Bendy laughed again, tail slapping the ink jovially. “Good point! I was tryin’ to be comforting, but am I bad at it. This is gonna be a nightmare, Snuf.”

“Oh.”

Snufkin was numb. Bendy kept talking, but the words were washed away in the pounding of his heart, the rasping of his breath. He couldn’t even fathom what Bendy planned to do to him, and that unknown was all the more terrifying. Like when he’d seen that gaping abyss what felt like ages ago and worlds away but had to be only a few hours and floors up. Bendy was that abyss, malevolent, deep, and dark. It was a stark contrast to his small cartoon shell.

Suddenly Bendy was in Snufkin’s face, ink eyes, ink grin filling his vision. Snufkin yelped and fumbled away.

“That’s what I like about ya, Snufkin,” Bendy was saying now that he had Snufkin’s attention. “You actually get  _ scared _ . All the humans here, they’re so apathetic. Sure they cry sometimes, and get all drippy and sad, but they weren’t afraid of me until I made ‘em afraid. And even then —“

Snufkin missed the rest of what Bendy said as he was dragged under the ink, legs and arms pulled wide, spreading him on the hard, wooden floor. He screamed, bubbles breaking the surface, before his mouth was forced shut.

The ink around him was alive. He didn’t know why he didn’t realize before, but it had never acted like this before. It pulsed around him, becoming less water and more a fleshy, solid mass encasing him. He spasmed, senses going hazy.

His mouth and nose were shoved above the ink. Snufkin gasped, struggles renewed. He couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t  _ move. _

Snufkin wished fervently he had paid attention to the signs.


	2. Chapter 2

Once in his travels, Snufkin had come across a cave and, as his natural inquisitiveness dictated, he had to explore. It had seemed shallow at first, but toward the back a long, horizontal crack glistened wetly like a mouth. Snufkin had unshouldered his bag and pushed it in front of him, then crept after into the maw of the earth. He had no fear of caves, of enclosed areas and tight squeezes, he was small and lithe and made easy work of the narrow crevasse.

The further along he wormed, the darker it had gotten, until he dropped barely a foot and plunged into absolute darkness. Suddenly his fearlessness had evaporated like so much water, and though he didn’t panic, he realized he was in a narrow, narrow space barely big enough to breathe, with heavy dirt and darkness on all sides. He’d felt, however briefly, entombed.

This felt like that, only infinitely worse. There was no crawling out, no light to drag himself toward. There was just Bendy and his horrible, nightmarish ink. It was a tomb of a very different kind.

Something pressed between his legs. Snufkin stilled, like a mouse suddenly aware of a cat.

The pressure continued, rubbing, soaking through his trousers and moving against his thighs.

“ _Bendy_ ,” he panted. His head was lifted above the ink.

“Yessss?” Bendy asked as the ink dripped from Snufkin’s eyes and ears and he could see and hear again. The faint light stung, the fumes burned. “Like somethin’ I’m doin’ to ya?”

“Stop, please,” Snufkin said, barely having the presence of mind to be polite. Bendy seemed to like people being deferential to him. “Please, let me go —“

“You lost the game, kid. No point in playing if there aren’t consequences.”

Something squeezed and an uncomfortable ache blossomed at his groin. “Please do—“

Under he went again, ink all in his mouth. He was allowed to breathe after a panicked moment.

The ink continued to massage him, press wetly and coldly against his entrance. It loosened him a little as Bendy began to focus on shoving in. Snufkin kicked and splashed, and Bendy let him for a little bit before wrenching his legs apart and stilling him again. The ink lowered just enough for him to hear, but remained over Snufkin’s eyes.

Thick fingers ghosted over his trembling belly. “You respond so much,” Bendy said, voice pleased. “That’s what I like, y’know. _Responsiveness_.”

“Please, Bendy,” Snufkin tried again. The ink was pressing in just a little, promising more pain, deeper violations. “Don’t, don’t — I’ll play games with you, I’ll —“

Snufkin shrieked as he was thrust into, though it was less a thrust and more— more filling, being _poured_ into. It wriggled in like something serpentine, pushing past his tight, unprepared muscles, sending searing pain up his spine and into his thighs. Though he wasn’t being smothered, he couldn’t breathe. He felt like he was being split open.

Snufkin’s tail and legs lurched through the thick ink.

After several moments, he began to think this was the worst of it done. It would just sit inside, throbbing and with each throb reminding him it existed.

“People are so unappreciative these days. Gotta be reminded to say thanks and be grateful for being saved from horrible ink monsters.”

“Hurts,” Snufkin groaned, spit dribbling out of his mouth, mixed and tinted with trails of ink.

“It’d hurt worse if my little mess-up had gotten ya. Real sicko, that one. Likes ‘em small. I don’t know _why_ I thought he’d make a good Bendy.” Bendy chuckled to himself. Snufkin didn’t have the presence of mind nor the stupidity to question how what Bendy was doing was any different.

A whine escaped as the ink pushed deeper, filled him more. Some of it wrapped around his length and began to squeeze in time to the undulations.

“Please, please,” Snufkin sobbed.

“I do like this beggin’ thing ya got goin’ on. Sounds like ya want more.”

The ink pulled out then shoved back in, adopting a punishing pace. Snufkin gave a high, dog-like wail, terrified his spine might snap from the jerky spasms. His muscles ached and strained, sent a dull, new pain radiating.

“What do ya say to the person who saved ya?”

“Ah, ah, ah, please —“ something wrapped around Snufkin’s tail and yanked. Hard. “Thank — thank you. Please stop it, stop it, stop — Thank you, Bendy. Thank you—“ He was saying anything to get Bendy to slacken the pace, to release him. Nothing seemed to work.

As warm blood trickled down his thigh, Snufkin realized that nothing would work. This was still Bendy’s game, one without rules Snufkin recognized. He could thank him, he could beg, he could probably curse and spit, but nothing would stop this pain that soaked through his body. Snufkin felt like he was being penetrated up to his ribs, and he kept coming to without realizing he’d drifted away, thoughts scattering like so much water on oilskin, everything up close and far away and here and not. The ink around him clenched and loosened like a fist, shifted him so easily, send the world tilting.

He hadn’t even realized he’d vomited until Bendy was mockingly chastising him.

“What a filthy guy you are, Snufkin. Puking all in my nice ink. What do you say to that?”

“‘M sorry,” Snufkin moaned. “I’m sorry. Bendy —“

“I like the way that sounds, too. You’re real good with words.”

Was he supposed to thank Bendy or apologize or beg? Snufkin had no idea. Words, horribly, failed him then as he curled slightly and spurted in his pants. There was no pleasure in it, not even the illusion of it, just like there was no illusion about what Bendy was doing to him.

Snufkin was going to die. He kept stumbling across this fact, but each time it was a new thrill of terror. He hadn’t died yet, his mind reminded him. He wanted to. He didn’t want to — he didn’t know anymore. More blood ran between his legs and soaked into his blackened trousers. He just wanted the pain to end.

When Bendy pulled out, he tore away Snufkin’s pants, exposing his pale thighs dripping in red and black.

Like a receding tide, the ink drifted away. Snufkin lay there in a heaving, shivering puddle. He blinked blearily up at Bendy as he approached, nonchalant as before.

“Does it hurt?”

Snufkin squeezed his eyes shut and nodded. He felt empty now, gross inside and out.

“Aren’t you glad it stopped?”

Oh. “Th-thank you.” Snufkin coughed up ink.

“Sammy calls me my Lord.”

Snufkin said nothing.

“Fiiine,” Bendy whined. “You’ve got gumption, kid. It’s cute. You’re cute. You’ll make a great me.”

Snufkin curled up into himself. He didn’t understand what Bendy meant, didn’t have the focus to respond. He was half out of his own body, just more ink pouring from a bottle. It was sheer nonsense. This entire place was utter, horrific nonsense.

Bendy spent the next what felt like hours driving that point home, playing with Snufkin like he was a puppet. One that Bendy didn’t know the limits of. He bent limbs until Snufkin was shouting, raped him as he clawed at the floor, laughed and talked and danced with him in jerky swinging motions as Snufkin couldn’t even get his feet under him.

Then, when he got bored, Bendy slapped some ink across his face, gagging him, and left. Snufkin wasn’t bound, he could leave, he could — he couldn’t breath. Bendy hadn’t left any air holes.

His fingers sank into the ink, came away with strands, but none left his face.  It just oozed and dripped from his mouth and nose.

Snufkin got to his feet. He didn’t have much time. Had to find… had to find an exit, had to get this stuff off. Every movement was agony, limbs shaking and strained, lungs burning with panic as he tried and tried and tried to breathe.

He stumbled to a wall, through a doorway. Why wouldn’t this ink come off?

Snufkin caught his leg on a chair and collapsed. He writhed for a bit, scratching at his face, before he passed out.

  


The ink rose and sat Snufkin upright. Bendy snapped his fingers until Snufkin’s gaze fixed on him. He could breathe again. It felt like fire. Time meant nothing anymore, slipping past like syrup. It felt like he’d been unconscious for hours, but simultaneously like only a few minutes had passed.

Bendy was saying something as though he hadn’t almost suffocated Snufkin. Snufkin struggled to process his words. “You can whistle, right? How ‘bout ya whistle my theme tune?”

“Your what?”

“Like this.” Bendy whistled a jaunty little song, something so out of place down here.

Snufkin stared uncomprehendingly. Bendy whistled it again.

“I don’t want to whistle,” Snufkin said vaguely.

Bendy blinked, the gesture exaggerated on his cartoony face. “What.”

Snufkin mustered some emotion other than horror. He was a Snufkin, not someone to be told what to do. It was easier now that he wasn’t being hurt. Stupid, but any wisdom attributed to Snufkins was always the fault of the attributor. He was hurt and scared and felt like Bendy was trying to strip away everything personal and private to him. “I-I won’t do it.”

“You don’t sound real sure of that. Might wanna reconsider.”

Ink coiled around Snufkin’s tail. He didn’t get a chance to reconsider when Bendy yanked hard enough that something popped, fire flew up Snufkin’s spine, and icy numbness dripped down his legs. Snufkin choked on air.

Bendy yanked again, dragging him a few inches and wrenching a keening whine out of him. “Your breathing sounds weird.”

Even if he wanted to, Snufkin couldn’t whistle now. His vision was spotted with black. If he hadn’t already vomited everything up, he would again. His body certainly tried to.

“You’re not gonna be me at all with this attitude,” Bendy groused. “Ain’t ya ever seen my cartoons?”

Snufkin shook his head.

“Woah, really? Why’d ya come in, then?”

Snufkin shrugged and even that hurt. He had to respond he knew, but explanations were beyond him. He just wished with all his heart that he’d not.

Bendy grabbed Snufkin’s paw and dragged him to his feet.

Snufkin fell over. His tail dragged brokenly, and the world spun. He couldn’t get his legs to work quite right. At first, blankly, he wasn’t sure why that was. His tail — Bendy had yanked, something had popped. Oh.

“I can’t move my legs,” he explained numbly, as though paralysis wasn’t a waking nightmare for a Snufkin. He’d never be able to travel like he had always done, roam the world, reliant on nobody but himself. Like most Snufkins, he was made for wandering and solitude. He didn’t know what he was if he couldn’t do that.

“‘I can’t move my legs’,” Bendy mimicked with a mocking whinge. “You’re such a baby, Snufkin. It was just a lil pop.”

When Snufkin tried and failed again to stand, Bendy huffed moodily. That was all the warning Snufkin got before ink enveloped him entirely.

For a brief, stomach-twisting moment, he was weightless. He was nothing. Bendy was going to hurt him again. Please no, please no—

 

Snufkin was in a chair. He had no memory of getting to it. One moment he was in a void, the next, a chair. He’d lost more time, somehow. He was coated liberally in ink, like a second skin, and his arms were held behind him by more. The floor was flooded and it dripped down the walls.

Bendy clicked on a projector, setting the gloom flickering as a cartoon scrolled across the screen.

“This is was my first toon,” he said fondly. The Bendy on the screen was nothing like the one beside Snufkin. They shared the same mannerisms and movements, but one was innocent, sweet, shy. Bendy was nothing like that. Snufkin refused to believe the cartoons were based on him.

Another reel played. Tombstone Picnic. Boris was in this one. Snufkin was watching a ghost. All through their exaggerated, cartoony antics on the screen he saw instead bones exposed, viscera torn out.

Another. Another. Bendy kept glancing at Snufkin, kept frowning when he wasn’t getting the reaction he wanted.

Snufkin’s limbs ached, where he could feel them at all. Numb. Numb. Everything was numb, inside and out. He didn’t even notice when the cartoons stopped. Bendy stared at him expectantly.

“Not even a smile? C’mon, those were great!”

“That’s not you.”

Bendy was, for a blessed moment, silent. Then, “You’re right.”

Snufkin was more unnerved when Bendy didn’t continue, but continued to just stare at him. Normally, silence was something he craved. This was a calculating one, though.

“I tried making another Bendy, one like the cartoons, for my collection. He wasn’t right at all, though. Guess the material matters.”

Snufkin suddenly recalled what Bendy had said before. It had made no sense, but, now, it was starting to in some strange, dreamlike way. “I’m a Snufkin, not a Bendy.”

“You’re whatever I want ya to be.”

“Why did the other one fail?” He couldn’t believe he was back to simply talking, when his body was broken and pain throbbed deep inside, crawled across his skin like oath bugs. Dreams followed their own logic, though. Just a dream. Snufkin allowed himself the mercy of believing that.

Bendy lit up at the question. Like so many, he must have enjoyed talking about himself. “When I turn people into, y'know, the characters, it's personal. I do it by hand," he said proudly. "We got acquainted real well during his transformation — he told me all sorts of things that weren’t very Bendy-like at all. Kinda surprised he had any part in makin' me.”

“He likes them small,” Snufkin echoed.

“People think ya want secrets like that when you’re torturin’ ‘em.” Bendy shook his head at the stupidity of that other Bendy. “I just do it ‘cause it’s fun. I don’t need all that on my plate. _You_ don’t have any deep, dark secrets do ya?”

“I wish I did.”

“You do seem real simple. I like that.”

“I’d be a bad Bendy.”

“Aw, don’t be so hard on yourself, Snuf.”

“I broke in here just because I was forbidden to,” Snufkin said desperately. Bendy _had_ said people spilled their secrets. These weren’t secrets, exactly, but they were things Bendy didn’t know. “I don’t know anything about your cartoon. I don’t even care, really. I have a prison record. I don’t like people. I commit crimes, smoke, drink —“

“Okay, okay, wow.” Bendy blew a raspberry. “That _doesn’t_ sound very Bendy-like. Doesn’t sound like any of us, actually. Also ouch. We just watched three hours of cartoons and you can’t even care a little?”

“No.”

Bendy lapsed back into silence. “I’ll find something for ya,” he said finally as though Snufkin hadn’t snubbed him.

“Just kill me, please.”

“Don’t even wanna be let go anymore, huh? It’s too late for any of that, pal. I hope ya like machinery more than ya like cartoons.”

  
  


The ink machine was big, imposing, and, much like Bendy, much like this place, intrinsically _wrong_. Snufkin sat beside Bendy as he fiddled with buttons and knobs on the side. His gaze was wide, breathing deep, as he stared at it. It was like some beast ready to devour him. Bendy turned around to find Snufkin crawling pathetically away, legs barely moving, paws clawing for any purchase in the cartoony wood to drag himself along. Bendy watched him silently. Snufkin knew he was being watched but what else could he do? Accept this?

Bendy enjoyed the show for several minutes more as Snufkin made it a depressingly short distance before he gently deposited him right back where he started. Snufkin wasn’t crying anymore, was instead too intent on getting away to feel anything but that abiding dread from when he’d first seen the hole where the machine hung from.

“If ya keep tryin’ to, hahah, run, I’ll break your arms next,” Bendy said conversationally. Snufkin contemplated this threat long enough for Bendy to look away. 

His wrists snapped with a sickening ease. First the right, then the left, taken carefully into Bendy’s hands. Bendy didn’t look like a cartoon, then. He looked like a monster, grin wide and malicious, ink eyes glistening brightly. He studied Snufkin’s black paws, small and thin against the white of his gloves, turned each over, before wrapping his fingers around his forearm and his palm and _twisting_. Snufkin shrieked both times, clawed at Bendy and only came away with ink under his nails.

Then he broke his forearms. Snufkin didn’t stop screaming, but they were entirely alone. He could feel the bone grinding together with every convulsion of his body, involuntary and agonizing.

Bendy let him fall over when he was done, back to the cheery, cute cartoon facade.

Escape was impossible, he didn’t know how to comply, and that left him hunched over, trying so, so futilely to stem the pain.

“Please, Bendy,” Snufkin moaned. The use of his name caught Bendy’s attention. “Please don’t do this. Don’t make me like you.”

“What’s wrong with bein’ like me?”

Snufkin frantically backtracked. Pleading to Bendy’s kinder side wouldn’t work He didn’t even know if Bendy had a kinder side. He did have an ego, though. He could use this, he could— it was so hard to think through the pain. His arms, his back— he had to though. “N-nothing. But nobody else _could_ be you.”

“Aw, shucks,” Bendy said, hands drifting away from the machine.

“That — that other Bendy, he’s a monster,” Snufkin said desperately, teeth grit against the pain as he tried to form a coherent argument. “Nothing but instinct. I won’t be any better. We Snufkins only do what pleases us. Then you’d have two mess-ups running around. Can’t… you can’t improve what you already have.”

“Earlier it really seemed like ya didn’t care at all ‘bout me.”

“I’m sorry. I was… I was upset. I was being stupid. Listen, you wanted me to whistle your song, right?”

At Bendy’s nod, Snufkin took a deep breath to shove down the pain — the entire night had been pain, he was beginning to adapt or go into shock — and pursed his lips. Snufkins always had a gift for art, and this one was no different. He started weak, but soon picked up the tune.

Bendy joined in happily, painting a surreal scene of a huddled, agonized Snufkin bent double in front of a deceptively humble looking demon as they whistled a duet. When the song died Snufkin took a shaky breath. His vision was getting hazy and dark around the edges.

“See? I was paying attention. I care. I don’t want you to have another failure.”

Bendy looked like he was wavering. “What should I do with ya, then?”

“L-let me go?” Snufkin ventured, suddenly feeling hopeful. Foolishly, perhaps, but it was better than a certainty he was going to die. “I tell stories — I could tell ones about you, your cartoons.”

“That sounds like a great idea!” Bendy clapped his hands excitedly. “Sure thing, pal. We’ll get ya up ‘n’ outta here, so you can go do that. Tell everyone how great I am and how fun the cartoons are. Make us a cult hit.”

Snufkin stared. It had been that simple? He almost suspected it, but Bendy seemed genuinely interested in his own self and people knowing about him.

He waited for Bendy to do something. Bendy just smiled at him. The revelation came thick as molasses through the pain.

“Oh.”

“Hah! You shoulda seen your face. I had ya goin’ for a moment there. You’re real optimistic, I’ll give ya that. I like that better than ya wantin’ to die. But nah, people’ll know ‘bout me in time. I don’t need no preacher spreadin’ the good word. ‘Specially not one all broken like you. You’ll feel better in a moment, though. I think.” He adopted a comically quizzical face as Snufkin was placed underneath the pipe jutting out of the machine.

“Please, please —“ Snufkin’s words were cut off by a sudden downpour of ink as the machine belched it out. It was a different kind from the ink flowing everywhere, and Snufkin’s screaming was entirely drowned out.

Everything fell apart, the world, his body, his thoughts. They scattered like so many marbles, and Snufkin tried frantically to gather them together, pull together the bits and pieces that made up him. He knew Bendy wanted to get rid of that, get rid of Snufkin and leave…. he didn’t know what. He didn’t want it to happen.

He couldn't stop it happening.

It was a little bit like drowning, a little bit like falling, and a lot like nothing Snufkin could describe. It hurt in ways that left his stomach tumbling and his limbs twisting, twisting, twisting without breaking even more. Every nerve was being stabbed through, down to the bone. It was in his mouth, in his nose, eyes, ears. It swallowed up his screaming like he was one of those silent episodes of Bendy’s cartoon.

The pain was impossible, all-consuming like waves crashing down and dragging him out to sea. It pressed in on his eyeballs and he couldn’t see — then the pressure was _inside_ them, like two small balloons popping. Warm fluid dripped into the ink and Snufkin could feel that like it was his skin. Something dripped out of his ears, his head ached all down to his jaw. His lungs were heavy, filling with bubbling ink shoving its way up his nose, down his throat, through clenched teeth, acrid across his tongue.

He could move — he stumbled forward, awayawayaway. Sight came slowly back to him as he clawed at the ink. Bendy was laughing, the gesture obvious even without sound. Snufkin saw clumps of his pale hair in his paws, held together by scalp. Through the ink he saw flashes of bone, fingers, forearms, flesh sloughed off leaving behind a cold nothingness so far past the numbness he’d felt before. Then, at least, he’d had the presence of his body, but here it was dissolving — melting, the thought came. _Melting_ before his eyes that now saw everything in dim tones of light and dark, Bendy the only solid mass past his shaking form.

Snufkin tripped, tried to catch himself but his arms crumpled up — oh right, Bendy had broken them. He couldn’t feel it anymore. Snufkin felt nothing from the sight except a stomach-churning nausea. He vomited ink and blood, teeth floating like flower petals in the mixture.

Bendy came forward tilted Snufkin’s chin up. Bendy was saying something, he couldn’t make out what, and dropped Snufkin’s hat back onto his head.

His shattered arms gave way again and he fell with a wet splat. Everything was fading in and out, warping like he was. His body wasn’t his own anymore, and Snufkin was sure his mind was soon to follow. He was starting to…. starting to numbly accept this. On the one hand it terrified him that Bendy was in his mind, on the other he welcomed the dulling of sensations. If he kept _feeling_ things he was going to go mad.

Bendy helped him into a sitting position, then fingers, more than Bendy should have had, were on his legs, his face, pressing in and shaping things. Snufkin gave a bubbling cry as one tore through his overcoat and disappeared up under his rib cage. Nononono — but it didn’t hurt, it just scared the shrinking part of his brain that cared who he was, what he was. Bendy’s arm was _inside Snufkin’s chest_ , and he only felt slippery sort of pressure.

Fingers dipped into his eyes, blinding him again. He was suddenly aware of everything he couldn’t see. The machine, the walls, others moaning and crying. Floor upon floor of ink sinking down, down into the earth. He wasn’t alone, despite how alone he felt. He could feel Bendy, too, like seeing without being able to see. Snufkin didn’t question this, didn’t question anything as Bendy cupped his cheeks and reached in to pull out the last of his teeth and study them curiously.

His vision came back, hazy and overlaid with this new sensation of ink everywhere, as Bendy finished his work. Snufkin was all wrung out of emotions, exhausted, numbed by the impossible. Bendy stood back, taking in his handiwork as he shook excess ink off of his gloves. His face scrunched up thoughtfully.

“We’ll call ya a work in progress,” he decided, then shook away any doubt with a grin. “My own Snufkin, wowee. We’re gonna have so much fun, right?”

Snufkin’s body nodded along, dripping ink, and he found himself standing on shaky legs. He had said he could put people back together. Snufkin was put together all wrong.

Bendy offered his hand to Snufkin, whose body slipped its paw right into his larger one. Snufkin cried out in his head. This wasn’t him this wasn’t him this wasn’t —

Bendy skipped along, and Snufkin’s body stumbled as it tried to follow at his pace.


	3. Chapter 3

Snufkin learned quickly after that how this world worked. It didn’t. It didn’t work at all. Everything was dictated by Bendy’s whims, and left to fester when he wasn’t interested.

Bendy was, currently, very, very interested in Snufkin. He wrapped his fingers, white and bulbous like fungus, around Snufkin’s paw. Snufkin couldn’t feel it, though, not like he used to. He couldn’t feel anything, but at the same time felt everything. His nerves (or what passed for them) tingled constantly as though a light breeze was blowing eternally down a long, long hallway, tickling at the walls. Everything was too close and too far away, oscillating nauseatingly between the two. He’d seen other characters and creatures ripping one another apart, seen without seeing, the world darkdark **dark —**

He had trouble walking. Bendy found it funny how he’d crash into things, trip over air, walk into walls without seeming to realize they were there as Bendy pulled him haltingly along across chasms and through narrow winding hallways, until they were standing on a stage — trees, a rock, all ink-outlined and fake. A camera, equally drawn looking, had its single judging eye focused on them.

Bendy looked at Snufkin expectantly, then, when no realization dawned, he crossed his arms huffily. “We’re gonna make a cartoon!”

Snufkin was sat down. This wasn’t his body anymore. It wasn’t his. It wasn’t his. He was screaming for this to end, and all he could do was sit there and bubble ink through the hole of his mouth.

Snufkin retreated from the scene, saw it shrink as if looking through the wrong end of a telescope. While his body performed gestures he didn’t tell it to, while it moaned out half-words per some silent order, he disappeared into the ink, and went far            far   

 

                  far

 

                                      away.  


There wasn’t silence to be found anywhere, only a constant crackle and groan, like radio static and echoes of the dying. Snufkin felt hunted by the ink that dripped and shaped everything, from chairs to walls to the air itself. He heard wet splattering sounds, saw Borises strapped down, torn apart by angels, angels dissolved and reformed, felt himself all tangled up in the gross twisted insides of that other Bendy.

Snufkin quickly retreated from that feeling, slimy and cold — not unlike the ink but somehow worse in its human-ness. Something like swallowing a heaving slug sprinkled with salt. It yanked at him, dragged him back, intrigued and aggressive, but Snufkin slipped away like the ink he was. Everyone, everything was ink.

Bendy himself was like some great, gaping void that called everything to it, sang a siren song to assimilate. To be his. It made Snufkin shudder, and ink trembled.

When he found his way back to his body, skirting that darkness that threatened to envelop and smother everything that was Snufkin, time had passed. He didn’t know how much, but could sense it in the lurch of his body. They were in a different place, his body curled like a dead spider as Bendy thrust into it. Snufkin didn’t want to go back, he wanted to just dissolve into the ink, but Bendy wanted him back so

Snufkin jerked upright with a shriek of pain. Bendy was small, but so was Snufkin, and Bendy was pushing up further than should be possible. The ink that made Snufkin’s body was aflame with agony, and he left smears along the floor as he writhed.

Bendy just laughed and laughed as Snufkin scrabbled for some purchase, tried futilely to get away. They were meldedtogetherandohgodithurtithurt. It was being flayed and being burned, being stabbed and bludgeoned all at once. Bendy’s hands were _inside_ of Snufkin. They dipped between ribs and squeezed organs. More hands than two, a half dozen disappearing inside his ink-body.

Snufkin spasmed, vomited up ink like black bile, and clawed. Every pathetic movement did nothing but drag the both of them across the floor, a single abomination. Bendy’s tail wrapped around Snufkin’s, in a gesture that would almost be gentle if not for everything else Bendy was doing to him.

“Welcome back,” Bendy said once he absolutely had Snufkin’s attention, a laugh bubbling under the words, because Snufkin hadn’t had a choice. If he had, he would just dissolve away into nothingness to get away.

Bendy pulled away from Snufkin, though threads of ink still connected the two of them. He was waiting. The pain ebbed.

“What?” Snufkin asked, and he was relieved the word was his own. Tired, weak, warped by the ink flooding his mouth and throat, but his own.

“I like an audience.”

“...What,” Snufkin repeated, not processing the words. He’d thought he was the spectacle.

“I’m done editin’ our cartoon, silly,” Bendy chirped. “I was workin’ on it while workin’ on you, while _you_ were bein’ a lazybones. C’mon, let’s go see.”

As though to torment him more, Bendy made Snufkin walk to a familiar room with a projector and wooden seats. It felt like forever ago since he’d had his own body and been his own person, trapped here watching cartoons. It hadn’t been that long though, or had it? Snufkin wasn’t sure anymore. He wasn’t sure of anything, where he ended and Bendy began, what he was in the groaning masses of other victims.

It was even worse seeing himself projected on the screen. He knew it was him, but it looked nothing like him, felt nothing like him. A dripping black mannequin with a giant cartoonish bow on its hat, eyes glowing sodium yellow like the lamps that dotted the studio, eyes that saw nothing, a mouth that said nothing but what Bendy wanted it to say. Somehow everything recorded had the scratchy, drawn quality of an actual cartoon.

Snufkin felt the interplay of light and darkness on the screen more than saw. He didn’t want to see. That wasn’t him up there, doing something absurd with a fishbowl and an ink-black fish. That was someone else; he wanted it to be anyone else. But he remembered doing that, even while his mind was lost somewhere else in the studio, blending with others trapped like him, leaking and fading and he’d been so close to just disappearing. Becoming him, her, you, them, anyone but himself. Anything but this nightmare.

He had memories of other things Bendy had subjected him to that he was sure hadn’t happened, of fingers torn off, being stabbed, burned, boiled away to expose bone. Like deja vu, Snufkin remembered and didn’t remember those things happening. When had Bendy done those, had he lost himself for that long? Were these other people’s memories? Time meant nothing, and it was so easy to be just a part of the mass, not a person. Not a person at all.

And he’d wanted it. He wanted that instead of this pastiche of a Snufkin, going through the motions of a cartoon alongside some god-like demon with the humor of a child. Bendy loved the _thing_ they had made, though to Snufkin it felt like a cruel mockery of what he was, and Bendy’s laughter was knife sharp.

_Kill me_ , Snufkin thought, _kill me, kill me, killmekillmekillme —_

“Okay,” Bendy said.

Snufkin started. His eyes flickered in confusion. The cartoon was over.

“Ya want me to kill ya, right?”

“But I —“

“You were thinkin’ it real loud.” Bendy tapped the side of his head knowingly. Even Snufkin’s mind wasn’t safe.

“Nah, it ain’t. You’re all mine, kiddo. That means aaaaaaaall of you. You have some real miserable thoughts, though, so I try t’ tune ‘em out. What a whiner.”

Snufkin said nothing. There wasn’t any point. He wanted to die.

“How do you think I should do it?” Bendy asked, leading Snufkin out of the room. “Rip ya limb from limb, break your every bone, rip out your throat? I’m open to suggestions.”

“Anything. I don’t — I don’t care.” Snufkin was going to die. It was the only way to escape, the only way to be free.

“Gosh, this is _your_ death, you could stand t’ be a little more invested. And no take-backs. We’re doin’ this thing, I don’t care how much you cry.”

Was Snufkin crying? He couldn’t tell with all the ink that perpetually dripped from him onto the floor with sloppy wet splats. He felt his mind drifting away from himself again, but Bendy snapped his fingers until Snufkin came back.

“Here we are!” He announced with a flourish. Before them lay a large and very dark pool of ink. More ink gushed from the walls and ceiling, filling it.

“Here’s where you’re gonna die. I was thinkin’ to make it special, y’know. ‘Cause you, hahah, you only get one.”

_I don’t want to die_ , Snufkin realized. Bendy was terrifying, what he was now disgusted him, but death was something altogether unknown. It was an end. Nothing existed after dying. At least now he existed in some form, some fashion. He wasn’t nothing. He didn’t want to die.

“Too late, bub, now c’mon, I’m gonna make you drown yourself.”

Snufkin began to walk toward the pool. _Please don’t, don’t don’t don’t_ —

Bendy stuck a finger against the side of his head like he was trying to clear out his ear. “You _can_ talk, y’know. Don’t gotta just be screamin’ in your head.”

Snufkin’s shoes were in the shallows. He felt he was dissolving already, as he waded in to where it leveled out, barely a foot deep. “Please, Bendy, please don’t! I don’t want to die, I’m scared, I’m scared —“ Snufkin’s pleas turned to broken sobs as he knelt down. It compounded his horror knowing that Bendy could feel the sheer terror coursing through him and continued anyway. Bendy was a monster, absolutely and completely.

As he shoved his own face into the ink, Snufkin screamed, bubbles billowing and popping around his head. He thought, nonsensically, of that fish in the cartoon, choking on air, drowning in nothingness. He and Bendy had been at odds as to whether the fish belonged in the water or in the air. Had it died in the cartoon? Snufkin couldn’t recall. He didn’t know why he was thinking of it, of all things. Maybe Bendy would pull him out of the ink, too.

Fingers pressed against his hat, pushed him down further. He couldn’t _breathe_. He was going to be killed. His body was still. Panic jumbled all of these sensations together. It made him ache under his ink skin, wanting so badly to move, to struggle, but being unable to, like that awful, uncomfortable sick feeling of being on the verge of vomiting but nothing happens, over and over and over.

His thoughts circled sluggishly back to the fish. Had that even been a real fish? It had acted real, flopped and gasped down air. Was this going to be his final thought? Snufkin couldn’t stop thinking about that stupid fish, and even that was becoming difficult. He liked fishing. Fishing was nice, but fish needed water to live, everyone knew that. Why would anyone try to save a fish from water, or a Snufkin from ink? This was fine. This was where he belonged, like a little, inky fish. Swim, swim, swimming in the dark, in the cold, in the

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

 

Snufkin was alive.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Snufkin didn’t know for how long he was aware. He had no sudden awakening, no spontaneous revelation that he was thinking, breathing, moving. He simply wasn’t then was, and the change brought up ink bile. It bubbled out and dripped down his chin into his lap.

“Hah, gross,” Bendy commented. He was sitting on a chair, putting him at eye-level with Snufkin. The room was empty of ink.

Words weren’t forthcoming as Snufkin tried to muddle through the fact that he wasn’t dead. Bendy hadn’t killed him.

“Oh, I definitely killed ya,” Bendy said. “You dropped like a stone and just lay there all floppy and sad lookin’, melting into the ink. No breathing, nothing pumping. Dead. As. A Doornail.”

Misreading his lack of response, which was born still of the shock of _not being dead_ , Bendy huffed. “You’re way more fun than I’ve had in a _while,_ so I brought ya back. I was really gonna let you go, honest, but I missed ya, okay?”

Snufkin had no memory of being dead, just a soul deep throb that he’d touched something untouchable and it left its indelible mark on him, so had no reason to doubt Bendy. Bendy could bring people back from the dead, he‘d been told this but hadn’t really believed it until now. It meant he couldn’t escape that way, even if he got desperate enough to want it again, even if he figured out how to do it of his own volition. To crave death because the other option was living like _this_. Even death was in Bendy’s thrall, here. This world was hell, and Snufkin couldn’t leave.

“Are you crying? You do that an awful lot.”

Snufkin sniffled, trying to stop and feeling like a child for the thick, inky tears that leaked from his glowing eyes. Though Bendy was smaller than him, right now he loomed large and cruel, and Snufkin felt so small and powerless.

He retreated into his own thoughts, because nothing else was his anymore. Even these weren’t his alone, as he could hear Bendy reminding him, but he could ignore Bendy for now. Until he demanded he not.

Snufkin thought briefly back to dying, but the sensation made his shudder in disgust. It was horrible, futile, something he never wanted to repeat. It was a whole new nightmare, which seemed like it should be impossible but Snufkin was having to accept nothing was impossible with Bendy.

“Hey, hey, stay with me, kid,” Bendy said, patting Snufkin’s cheek. It made a wet slapping sound. He moaned. The permanence of what he would endure was setting in. No death, no reprieve, no escape. He was trapped, body broken and rebuilt in an image he didn’t recognize, forced to be present and drawn into a melting pot of souls when not.

Bendy’s fingers dug into Snufkin’s throat, pulling him almost flush to his flat, grinning face. “Glad yer startin’ to realize how things are here. The instant you came through that door, you were mine, Snufkin.”

“I didn’t want this.”

“Well ya got it anyway. Gotta learn to live with your decisions, pal.”   

“Please, Bendy,” Snufkin sobbed, words faint and drowned in ink. His voice choked before he could beg Bendy to stop all of this, to let Snufkin go, to let him dissolve away or something. Anything but being here, perpetually.

Bendy whistled like he didn’t hear the words Snufkin couldn’t say. He was smothering Snufkin, refusing him his words, his thoughts. Snufkin was standing on the edge of the precipice that was Bendy, pleading with a mad god to have mercy, when Snufkin wasn’t even sure Bendy knew what that was.

“I do too. It’s that thing angels have, not devils. Anyway, before you decided t’ so rudely puke, I was gonna play dress-up,” Bendy announced. “I was thinkin’ _pirates_. I was a pirate, once. In ‘Bendy Walks the Plank’. Yarrr.”

When Snufkin didn’t react with anything more than a blank stare, Bendy stopped making pirate noises and reached up to his hat. It came off easily. Snufkin screamed. It felt like he was being scalped.

“Oh, yeah, it’s kinda _attached_ to you. Whoops. You’re really not gonna like when I take off your dress thing. Unless you wanna?”

Snufkin shook his head even as he stood up. His fingers reached up to the wet ink at the base of his throat and began to work their way into the seam there. They were digging under flesh. Ink welled up like blood, mingled with the ink of his fingers as he flayed himself slowly. Bendy let him sob as he did so, though it did nothing to alleviate the agony of skin peeled away inch by inch.

More ink and the occasional flash of bone was revealed under the strips coming off. They fell to the ground like soaked ribbons. Snufkin was doing this to himself, it was the same nightmare as when he’d been ordered to drown himself, molasses-thick and surreal. Layer by layer he shed his own skin, until just the emaciated inner workings were left, exposed to the cold studio air. Snufkin shivered, and it sent new licks of pain all over his body. He could still feel the ink-soaked strips that had been his skin even as they dissolved into the floor.

Bendy whistled. “Sau-cy,” he sing-songed. “What a striptease. Right down to the bone.” He hopped down and circled Snufkin. “You’re all scrawny without your clothes on. I like ‘em scrawny.” A finger flicked against Snufkins’ thigh, and he gave a thin wail, then Bendy wandered off to a puddle of ink. From it he pulled hats, jackets, boots, accessories, and other costume items like a magician pulling scarves out of his sleeve.

Snufkin knelt, and every movement was agony. He was still denied control over his body. It was Bendy’s property, a part of his world, and he pulled the strings like Snufkin was just some marionette. Snufkin felt like one, he felt like nothing. He was nothing, just a toy of Bendy’s to be dressed up and dressed down, to be hurt and violated.

Bendy put on a pirate outfit and forced Snufkin’s body to slip into a matching one. “Give us a tune, arrrr,” Bendy said in poor imitation of a pirate’s speech. “Yohoho, c’mon, Snuf.”

Snufkin wasn’t whistling at Bendy’s command — his mouth was his still. He pursed his lips tightly closed, but was soon assaulted by memories of the other times he’d rebelled, but they weren’t from his perspective. They were _Bendy’s_ thoughts. This was how Bendy felt, a sickening glee at every opportunity to ruin something good, something untainted by ink. It was perverse, pervasive, and entirely focused on Snufkin as limbs broke and joints popped. As he was raped, he felt himself raping. A reminder.

“Nnnngh.” He couldn’t even form words; he just wanted it to stop. He had to — he had to whistle, that was what Bendy wanted. Snufkin tried his best to shape a melting, ink-filled mouth into the proper shape and wheezed out a few notes. After a few more desperate tries, as he could feel Bendy growing impatient, he began to understand just how his ink body worked.

Music was something that came when it willed, and Snufkin didn’t often have a set tune in mind or a clear song. It meandered, dipped and rose, spun and looped as it wanted. Right now, it wanted to pitch up in shrill cries and fade away as Snufkin tried to regulate his breathing. It wasn’t music, no cadence nor rhythm to speak of, but Bendy didn’t seem to care. He picked up the tune such that it was and pulled Snufkin into a dance.

Like music, dancing was a loose term for their frantic, energetic movements. Snufkin stumbled and was yanked around, bent to match Bendy’s height as they swung wildly around the room, splashing ink█everywh██e. Bendy sang snippets o██songs he didn’t know █ll the words to, jumped to different s█ngs, dragged Snufkin alo█g.

Snufkin gave up whistling shortly after starting, but Bendy didn’t seem to notice or care. They danced until Snufkin’s bones ached and he █elt shaky, heady██They switched costumes. They danced and displayed. They switched. More. M███. Snufkin’s feet hurt like they were encased in tight, hot iron,█forcing him to dance.

He was exhausted by the time Bendy showed any sign of even slowing. He had infinite energy and boundless enthusiasm for the fun of dress-up. Pirates, explorers, laborers and a sundry other costumes that Snufkin was forced into alongside him.

“Alice never wants t’ play with me,” Bendy explained, the wolf tail strapped to his own wagging as he rummaged through more costumes, “But you do. That’s why I like ya; you let me do what I want.” Snufkin stood there, mute and numb, dressed like a sheep. He wanted to collapse, to stop existing just for a few moments, was that too much to ask? A moment’s reprieve? Even these seemingly harmless activities were crawling with an inescapable _wrongness,_ with pain _._ Bendy wasn’t the cartoon character he pretended to be, wasn’t anything of this world. So he’d rewritten the world.

It wasn’t fair. Snufkin had never been one to assume the world as it was had been, but this was so far beyond unfair. It made him, irrationally, _angry_ . He’d been so scared and hurt and sad, he’d forgotten what it felt like. It was, like everything else, a new sensation in this body. It bubbled and hurt but it was a different sort of hurt than the existential horror of violation and undeath. It was spiteful, a sensation Snufkins as a general rule were unfamiliar with. This wasn’t fair. He’d thought it when Bendy had first began his games, and he thought it now and it _burned_.

As Bendy searched for anything that caught his attention, Snufkin stumbled back. He could move. It was probably a trick. He looked around. There was a doorway, a hall. Every movement was agony, but it was his movement, his agony.

He ran.

Through the door, down the hall, turning corners and praying no ink puddles burst into those things, that he didn’t run into that other Bendy. At every cutout with its blank, staring eyes, he knew Bendy could see him, but still he ran. Into the Music Department, familiar ground. He picked a hall, a room, anywhere that kept him going forward.

Snufkin collided with Boris, and immediately his heart leapt. He wasn’t dead! He wasn’t —


	4. Chapter 4

Any pleasure at seeing Boris died when the tall figure turned and looked down at him. A beaten up Bendy mask was strapped to his head, and a nauseating wave of _devotion_ radiated from him. This wasn’t Boris. Snufkin stepped back.

The person cocked his head, scrutinizing Snufkin somehow, though Snufkin couldn’t see any eye-holes in the mask. Feeling him out, like Snufkin could feel him through the ink. There was confusion, interest, and an all-consuming need for Bendy that Snufkin couldn’t fathom. How could anyone want Bendy, want what he did to them?

“Hello, little sheep,” the person crooned, and Snufkin cowered. “I’m unfamiliar with your design — did my Lord make you?”

Snufkin’s thoughts immediately jumped to what Bendy had said, _Sammy calls me my Lord_. Sammy. It meant nothing to Snufkin, except that he wasn’t Boris at all. Snufkin knew he’d get no help here. He took another step back, began looking for a new path.

Sammy grabbed him by the arm. “No need to leave so soon. We’ve only just met, and I’ve been wondering where my Lord has been as of late. Working on you, I suppose.” There was a hint of jealousy in his voice, and the contact between them was overwhelmingly Bendy _BendyBendy_.

Snufkin kicked Sammy in the leg and wrenched his arm away. Sammy let go with a muffled oath of pain. Ink connected the two of them for a brief moment, then broke and he was free. He darted to a door and yanked on the handle. It wouldn’t open. Snufkin searched the room. No other doors, just the one Snufkin had come through and this one.

“Are you fleeing?” Sammy asked, approaching Snufkin. Snufkin slid along the wall, trying to keep as much distance from him as possible. “It seems the sheep has wandered from its flock. I’m sure my Lord would like it returned to Him.”

Snufkin made for the open door. Bendybendybendy **Bendy** Bendy.

Sammy caught him around the waist and bodily lifted him. Snufkin yowled and flailed, fingers clawing for any purchase and coming away with only ink. Sammy’s larger hand wrapping easily around both of Snufkin’s wrists.

“Please, don’t. Don’t — I don’t want to — I can’t —“

“Hush, hush, little sheep,” Sammy said, walking out of the room. “You’ve wandered far but we’ll return you to your Shepherd.”

“Sammy, you’re Sammy right?” Snufkin asked, and the name gave Sammy pause. Snufkin had a far more intimate insight into Sammy than he’d ever wanted of another person, the obsession that boiled through him. He hoped he could use it. “Sammy, I’m nothing to Bendy. I’m sure he wants you much more. You don’t need to return me to him. You can have him all to yourself.”

“I can feel your fear of our Lord, and you should fear Him,” Sammy said as he set Snufkin in a chair. When he tried to get up, Sammy easily pushed him down, both hands on his thin shoulders, ink dripping into the white of the sheep costume. _Bendy_ BendyBendy _Bendy_ **_BendyBendy_ ** **.** “He’s terrifying and glorious, drawing you in like a howling abyss. His form is so unassuming, but His power is unparalleled. He transformed the world, made it better — He’s granted us an importance unlike any we could have found ourselves. What gratitude we must show Him, what thanks for the gift He’s bestowed. So many are ungrateful, but we know how it is. My Lord has chosen me as His acolyte, a disciple to spread His word, and you? You are not like us, you’re His _creation_.”

“I’m not, I’m not.” Snufkin twisted but Sammy was easily double his height and instead of emaciated bones and ink, he had a solid, firm build. “I’m not his, I’m my own.”

“Tsk-tsk. You should be grateful, my little sheep, to be shaped by one as wondrous as our Savior. To be embraced in His ink, crafted in an image pleasing to Him. He’ll want you back, I’m sure.” One of Sammy’s finger’s brushed the tears on Snufkin’s cheek, came away with a string of ink. “A work in progress, perhaps, but aren’t we all?”

“Please, Sammy, help me escape, and Bendy will be all yours again. I won’t be in the way.”

“Escape? Why would you want to do that? You’ll learn just how — ah,” Sammy interrupted himself and pulled away from Snufkin. Echoing through the halls was faint whistling. The pipes in the walls groaned. “Do you hear him, sheep? Our Lord is coming. He’ll be here soon, and you’ll be here for Him. As will I.”

“No, no, Sammy, don’t let him take me again, please, I’ll do anything you want, anything at all —“

Sammy laughed, and the sound was rich and clear and sinister. “I only want my Lord’s approval and His blessings. Now hush, little sheep. Hush and wait for Bendy.”

Snufkin took a shaky breath. Nobody would help him. Everyone was mad here, or dead, or both. He was all alone. Isolated and caged in this place. His tail lashed in agitation at the mere thought. The walls felt too close, Sammy was too close BendyBendy his ink dripping onto Snufkin as he held him down _BendyBendyBendy_. It was hard to breathe. What if Bendy was suffocating him? Snufkin’s breath whistled. He was, he was, he was going to kill him again — Bendybendybendybendy.

“You’re doin’ that yourself, ya goober,” Bendy’s high voice cut through. Sammy dropped to his knees like a puppet with its strings cut.

“ _My Lord_ ,” he said, and the ecstasy that followed those simple words was oily and viscous. Snufkin hated this connection forced on him, it overwhelmed and made it difficult to tell where his own revulsion ended and Sammy’s adoration began.

Bendy’s wolf costume was gone. He was done playing dress up. Sammy towered even kneeling. “Hi, Sammy. What do ya think of my little pal here?”

“He’s… lovely, my Lord. A new sheep for your flock.”

“Hah, you hate him. But I think he’s cute.”

“Yes, Bendy.”

“Ya wanna know a secret, Sammy?” Bendy leaned in close to him, and Sammy immediately bent in further. “I led him here for ya. I saw the sheep costume and thought ‘ain’t Sammy always on about sheep?’”

“My Lord,” Sammy breathed.

Snufkin wanted to move, but fear gripped his body — or it was Bendy, taking control again, he couldn’t tell anymore. Why would Bendy lead him here? Warp the rooms, the halls, to bring Snufkin into contact with this worshipful, desperate thing.

“So now that I brought ya a sheep, what are ya gonna do with it, Sammy?”

Sammy lifted his head to Snufkin, and the Bendy mask he wore was inscrutable.  His emotions were vengeful and elated. “One usually sacrifices sheep to their God,” he mused.

“That sounds fun. Doesn’t that sound fun, Snuf?” Bendy’s grin was big and mischievous.

Snufkin gave the faintest shake of his head.

“Eh, he’s no fun,” Bendy said dismissively. “ _You_ know how to have fun, though, Sammy.”

“You want me to kill your creation?” Sammy sounded breathy, somewhere between orgasmic and terrified.

“Sure do. Go on, Sammy, sacrifice a sheep for me.”

“Yes, my Lord.” Sammy got up from shaky knees and approached Snufkin. He hesitated. “Usually one has a knife for this sort of thing —“

“Oh, right, gotta do it proper.” Bendy pulled a knife from behind his back, something simple and cartoonish. “Here ya go.”

“Thank you, my Lord.”

Snufkin bolted, but made it all of three steps before Sammy intercepted him again. He shoved him down into the chair, held him in place as the knife danced dangerously over his throat, down his chest. _Bendy_. A tremor of excitement ran through Sammy’s body, made the knife quiver in the sodium light.

“Don’t, please, Sam— urgh,” Snufkin’s begging was cut off as Sammy shoved the knife full to the hilt. Snufkin’s paws dug into his arms, his legs kicked for any purchase to get Sammy off or get himself away. What breath he could get came in faint, pained gasps. Soon breathing became impossible as ink welled and dripped out of his mouth, spread across the white sheep outfit.

Unlike the surreal, slow death of drowning, this was sharp, spreading fast, hot and cold, numb in his extremities and feeling too much sensation in his gut, in his chest where Sammy kept stabbing in the knife, searching out any solid part of him to slice into. Snufkin was aware of every second, every cut.

His struggles weakened and died. Sammy stepped away, ink dripping from his knife. Snufkin’s chest heaved as he tried to breathe, slumped back against the chair. Sammy’s and Bendy’s attentions were fixated on him, like some spectacle. Bendyც૯Ոძעც૯Ոძע _Bendy_

The hazy moments before death were full of nightmarish images of Sammy above him, Bendy — both watching with that rictus grin, whistling coming from somewhere, off-key and discordant. He was dying, dying, dying again, could feel his thoughts sc att er ing l i  ke li gh t in a twi rli n g pr ism.

And under all that, he knew, this time, it wasn’t the end.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


                                                         B̵̨̯̭͙̮͗͐͗̊̒̽̑̃̏̕ ẽ̵͙̹͖̝͎̜͔̭̯͊ ṋ̸̗̼̭͙̗͔̠̌̅̍̒̑d̶̨͔̫̘̙̣̠͖̤͖͒ ẙ̶̢͉̙̫̙̞̼̎B̴͕̣̙̥̬̉͗̄́̇̊̋e̷̦̫͎̻̿n̷̞̝̳̂̏̽̔̒̀̎̀̔͜d̶̠͙̗͖̓͐̎̂͋̋̕ͅy̵̬̼͓̍B̶̮̾́̂̈̀̎̍̓͠e̷͓̝͉͓̠͗͜n̵̝̞̭̥̭͇̿͑͛̉̓̋̚̚͘d̷̡͔̫̲̯̬͚̘̓̍́̅̄̀̊͂̕͜͠ ỳ̷̦̪̺̣̄͛̓͗͑̓́͠͝B̵̨̯̭͙̮͗͐͗̊̒̽̑̃̏̕ ẽ̵͙̹͖̝͎̜͔̭̯͊ṋ̸̗̼̭͙̗͔̠̌̅̍̒̑d̶̨͔̫̘̙̣̠͖̤͖͒. ẙ̶̢͉̙̫̙̞̼̎B̴͕̣̙̥̬̉͗̄́̇̊̋e̷̦̫͎̻̿ n̷̞̝̳̂̏̽̔̒̀̎̀̔͜d̶̠͙̗͖̓͐̎̂͋̋̕ͅy̵̬̼͓̍

                                                  ʎpuǝᙠʎpu ǝᙠ ʎ pu ǝᙠ

     B̵̨̯̭͙̮͗͐͗̊̒̽̑̃̏̕ ẽ̵͙̹͖̝͎̜͔̭̯͊ ṋ̸̗̼̭͙̗͔̠̌̅̍̒̑d̶̨͔̫̘̙̣̠͖̤͖͒ ẙ̶̢͉̙̫̙̞̼̎B̴͕̣̙̥̬̉͗̄́̇̊̋e̷̦̫͎̻̿n̷̞̝̳̂̏̽̔̒̀̎̀̔͜d̶̠͙̗͖̓͐̎̂͋̋̕ͅy̵̬̼͓̍B̶̮̾́̂̈̀̎̍̓͠e̷͓̝͉͓̠͗͜n̵̝̞̭̥̭͇̿͑͛̉̓̋̚̚͘d̷̡͔̫̲̯̬͚̘̓̍́̅̄̀̊͂̕͜͠ ỳ̷̦̪̺̣̄͛̓͗͑̓́͠͝B̵̨̯̭͙̮͗͐͗̊̒̽̑̃̏̕ ẽ̵͙̹͖̝͎̜͔̭̯͊ṋ̸̗̼̭͙̗͔̠̌̅̍̒̑d̶̨͔̫̘̙̣̠͖̤͖͒. ẙ̶̢͉̙̫̙̞̼̎B̴͕̣̙̥̬̉͗̄́̇̊̋e̷̦̫͎̻̿ n̷̞̝̳̂̏̽̔̒̀̎̀̔͜d̶̠͙̗͖̓͐̎̂͋̋̕ͅy̵̬̼͓̍

ʎpuǝᙠʎpu ǝᙠ ʎ pu ǝᙠ “Bendy, my Lord,” Sammy moaned. The first thing Snufkin felt was his sick devotion, then came the arousal. Snufkin stared up at the shadowy ceiling.

“You did good, Sammy Lawrence,” Bendy said. Unlike Sammy, whose voice was thick and heavy, Bendy sounded exactly like he normally did.

Not dead. Not again. That creeping chill was embedded in Snufkin’s bones, in his brain. He slowly became aware of his surroundings. He was wearing the sheep costume, still, stained dark with ink. Slumped against the chair. He’d just been left there after being murdered. The knife was embedded in his chest.

He screamed.

“Oh, shut up, Snuf,” Bendy said. “And don’t stop, Sammy. Snufkin’s just bein’ dramatic.”

Snufkin’s head rolled to Bendy. He was beneath Sammy, who kneeled before a low box, trousers undone, suspenders slipping off his shoulders. It took Snufkin a moment to piece together what was happening. They were having sex.

Snufkin had a _knife stuck in him._

He hesitated, then wrapped his paws around the hilt. Normally, Snufkin knew one never pulled a knife out of a wound without plenty of care, but this wasn’t a normal situation.

He yanked it out with a grit-toothed cry. Ink splattered, and he worried he was going to die again. The knife clattered to the floor.

Bendy and Sammy continued, the ink creating a strange, wet smacking noise with every movement.

“My Lord, my Lord,” Sammy grunted, his large hands wrapped around Bendy. All his pretty words about his savior and god seemed gone, drowned in his need for Bendy. Bendy’s tail lashed in pleasure.

Snufkin’s own tail was curling and uncurling, and there was an uncomfortableness in his belly. He couldn’t take his eyes off of the two of them. He wanted to, but he was paralyzed, like those strange nights when he’d wake up unable to move, feeling as though something or someone was holding him down. He wanted to so desperately look away. _BendyBendy_ —

Sammy’s obsession dug into Snufkin’s brain, made him want Bendy too, want his approval. It curdled in his stomach, fighting with his own revulsion.

“Stop it, _stop it_ ,” Snufkin howled, ripping himself away from the scene, paws covering his ears as though that would drown out the need for Bendy. He fell off the chair, sent his aching belly aflame with fresh pain, and crawled away — no place in particular, just _away_.

Sammy kept thrusting into Bendy as Snufkin found a corner and curled pathetically into it. Ink was oozing sluggishly like old blood out of him, and he couldn’t shake the second skin of Sammy’s emotions. The high he got while with Bendy, buried deep inside of him.

Snufkin groaned. He kept getting flits of thoughts that weren’t his, though they sounded like him. _Love Bendy. Worship Him. He will save you._

His paws crept down from his neck to the wounds in his stomach. Snufkin strained against the movements. His head throbbed from the constant pull and push happening inside. SammyBendySnufkin they were all in there. Worship and sick humor and horror.

Snufkin’s fingers dipped into one of his wounds. His other hand slipped gently up his stinging thigh, under the sheep costume. “Bendy,” he cried out, but instead of the fearful begging Snufkin felt, it was a wanton sob of need.

“What was that, Snufkin?” Bendy called.

“Bendy, Bendy, please, Bendy,” Snufkin moaned. His fingers were shoving into the slit in his belly, sending pain up and down his spine interlaced with a disgusting pleasure from his paw around his length, from Sammy across the room.

Snufkin’s head turned to watch Bendy and Sammy. Sammy’s breathing was getting shaky as he thrust into Bendy’s small form. Bendy just lay there, relaxed and grinning, eyes on Sammy, gloves stroking his arms. Snufkin felt a responding arousal underneath the searing of his fingers digging into his emaciated guts.

He rocked back and forth in time to Sammy’s thrusts, and gradually Snufkin realized he had some control of the movements. Not of his paws, but a generalized sense of his own body.

He slammed himself back against the wall and his head bounced, sending a blinding white pain through his skull. It drowned out the other sensations. Snufkin did it again, again. He couldn’t stop his fingers, but he could smother the feeling.

“Get out get out _get out_ ” mixed with “My Lord, oh, my God, Bendy, Bendy” mixed with high, snickering laughter and the rhythmic thud of Snufkin bashing himself against the wall. It was some sick orchestra, conducted by Bendy.

It went on far longer than it should take any single person to climax, but Snufkin had no doubt Sammy was as much in Bendy’s physical thrall as he was mentally. He’d keep going until Bendy wanted to stop, far past any sane intercourse.

Snufkin felt the familiar build up of his own climax, but it kept easing toward it and never arriving. Ebbing, flowing, making him ache under all the pain. His paw worked frantically on him, while his other thrust lewdly into his wound, opening it more.

Snufkin felt woozy, head cottony and throbbing. He was pretty sure he was leaving an inky imprint on the wall where his skull contacted at every hit. But it was better than this, than his own thoughts being violated.

Then it was over. Snufkin hadn’t cum, neither had Sammy, but Bendy was done playing this particular game. Snufkin slumped over into a shivering heap.

“You’re such a good boy, Sammy,” Bendy cooed. “Doin’ what makes me feel good. Does it ache? Do ya want some relief?”

“Yes, my Lord.”

Snufkin shifted a bit to watch the two of them balefully with one glowing eye. Sammy was kneeling before Bendy, who had his hands up underneath the mask, stroking his face and neck, whispering something to him. Sammy’s hands traced Bendy’s horns.  It was an intimate moment Snufkin wanted no part in, but even these quieter moments were inescapable. There was no such thing as privacy in this world, no solitude even in one’s mind.

Bendy settled cross-legged on the box as Sammy approached Snufkin. He got to shaky hands and knees and tried to crawl away, along the wall.

“Now, now, sheep, there’s no need to run. Our Lord is everywhere. He is always watching.”

Right now, Bendy was indeed watching them with rapt attention. This was… this was some sort of show for his amusement.

When Sammy knelt to pick him up, Snufkin grabbed Sammy’s arms. His head was ringing and it was hard to put together words that didn’t slur. “Please, Sammy — I’m sure this isn’t you. This isn’t what you would have wanted.”

Sammy laughed again, and Snufkin realized what bothered him so much about it, in particular. It sounded _sane_. Completely aware, and yet he did these things. For Bendy. Even before Sammy next spoke, Snufkin was doubting his own assessment. It was hard to believe, as he was tied to the chair, that this devotion had been wholly manufactured.

“Oh, little sheep, how wrong you are. I’ve spent my life searching for one such as Bendy. There’s little else I remember than the _need_ for Him. He is understanding, cruel but kind if you accept Him. After all, he gave me you.”

“What?”

“A gift for His most ardent disciple. The sacrificial lamb, risen again. Be glad you’ve been chosen by Him.”

Sammy swung his leg over the chair, his arousal thick and dripping from his undone pants. Snufkin couldn’t stop thinking how Sammy could want this, how he could follow through with murder and rape because Bendy wanted him to. How deep and intrinsically _his_ his devotion was. Snufkin couldn’t blame Bendy for this.

“The angle’s perfect, Sammy.”

“Thank you, my Lord.”

Sammy’s fingers felt out Snufkin’s stomach, until they settled on a wound in his side that he’d not torn open himself. It was a gash in the thin layer of ink that gelatinously held the vague idea of his body shape. He lined the head of his length up with it and pressed.

Snufkin shrieked and kicked out. The chair rocked dangerously but didn’t topple. A hand steadied it, while another pressed against his mouth and craned his neck painfully back. Snufkin kept screaming despite the gag as Sammy pushed in with a wet POP like puncturing the skin of a balloon. He began a punishing pace, going through the motions to get to release. There was no attraction, no arousal for Snufkin, just that desperate need for Bendy that kept Sammy going.

This was different from being raped by Bendy, though Bendy had never shied away from sticking his body parts into Snufkin’s torso, either. This was another person doing it, a twisted person. The feel of Sammy was vastly different from that other Bendy, but it inspired a similar revulsion for just how _human_ it was. Bendy was otherworldly and unknowable but Snufkin knew people. He’d met people like this before. And now he was being fucked by one in the sickest way.

He pulled at the ropes but they only sank into ink and bit into his skeletal wrists. Snufkin’s eyes focused intently on the ceiling. He wanted to lose himself in the dark gaps between boards, where they looked like something just drawn on. All he could feel was Sammy thrusting up into his innards, but this time he wasn’t dying. Bendy didn’t want him to die. He wanted him to suffer, and Sammy gladly complied.

BendyBendy _Bendy_ **BendyBeNDyBENDY**

Sammy stepped back, leaving Snufkin slumped and spent in the chair. Ink dripped between them. Sammy’s emotions were all tangled up inside of Snufkin. Snufkin wanted to drop to his knees in worship, and he hated it. He was so, so tired though. It felt like ages since he’d slept, everything hurt from fighting so much.

“Just stop fightin’ then, duh,” Bendy said. He stood in front of Snufkin, tail wagging. Snufkin couldn’t focus on what he’d said.

“Stop fighting. Embrace your new life, Snuf. It’s gonna be yours for a long, long, _long_ time. Just let it happen.”

That sounded…. that sounded nice. Snufkin would have been horrified by his own thinking if he wasn’t bone-deep weary of being used, being abused and killed and maimed. He’d been shown time and again he couldn’t _not_ suffer. And it wouldn’t be solely by Bendy’s hand. There were monsters here aside from him. What was the point of fighting them all?

“Good boy,” Bendy cooed. There was that flicker of jealousy from Sammy, but Snufkin didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything anymore. It hurt too much to care, to want and need and be anything at all. He wasn’t even a Snufkin anymore, he wasn’t anything at all.

Snufkin was released from the chair and immediately sank to his knees in front of Bendy. He wasn’t going to run anymore, or struggle. He’d just let it happen, whatever Bendy wanted.

Accepting that brought a certain sort of peace to Snufkin. A calm which made everything a little more bearable, if he didn’t think too hard on it, on what he was anymore, what he felt. It was all Bendy’s.

If this was his life now, it wasn’t a nightmare. It simply was. The nightmare was over.

  
  
  


 

 

Snufkin woke up. He lay in a shallow puddle of ink. Half of his face was cold from the contact. The air was chilly, but not painful on exposed nerves. He was wearing layers of clothing.

He sat up. Paws, that earthy near-black brown. Face not sloughing off. Teeth, hair, hat. He grabbed his tail and held it in disbelief. It was completely normal. There was blood on his temple and on the edge of a chair.

He tried to piece together what happened. He’d been exploring. He’d wanted to turn off the ink. Then… then he must have slipped. There was so much ink everywhere, it was unsurprising. Snufkin’s head _did_ throb.

There were vague impressions of a nightmare, but they were fading fast. What wisps he could recall made him shudder. Snufkin looked at one of the Bendy cutouts, and this time found it oddly threatening. Such a creepy character. He decided to leave. Some wind and natural light would banish this crawling feeling between his shoulder blades.

He steadied himself a moment longer, then, once he felt comfortable, set out.

Snufkin couldn’t seem to find the door. He was sure it was just a few turns down, but everywhere he went looked the same, seemed to loop back around. There was no way the studio was actually this large — he must still be dizzy from his fall. He was even hearing whistling underneath the sound of machinery.

The sound made his heart race irrationally, his tail twitch in agitation. It grew louder and louder no matter where Snufkin turned, until Snufkin stumbled into a projection room playing a loop of Bendy bouncing. The whistling was coming from that. He blushed in embarrassment at how nervous he’d been and immediately shut it off. Blessed quiet fell.

This place put him on edge, and he wasn’t sure why. Everything seemed wrong, unnatural. Snufkin walked more slowly through the halls, trying to pinpoint the feeling of wrongness that made him cold. He should have been to the exit by now, or come across anything new.

Something clattered behind him, and Snufkin turned around to regard the gloomy hall. A name jumped to his lips.

“Boris?”

He didn’t know why he thought of the cartoon wolf from the posters, but it made him inexplicably sad.

“Nah, just me,” a high, silly voice replied. Ice shot through Snufkin’s veins. Bendy stepped into the hall. “Gosh, ya look like you’ve seen a ghost, Snufkin.”

The memories crashed in. The pain, the torment. Snufkin’s paws flew to his hat and he yanked it down over his ears as he tripped away from Bendy. Walking was suddenly impossible, and Snufkin feared for a moment Bendy had taken control, but his mind was quiet, was his alone again. It wasn’t a cacophony of other voices and needs.

Snufkin got his legs under him and ran.

He ran and ran until his legs were shaky, his breath rattled. Snufkin stumbled, crashed into a Bendy cutout, collapsed in front of it. Bendy hadn’t followed, but Bendy didn’t need to.

Tears dripped down Snufkin’s cheeks, fear and remembered agony making his shoulders shake. He’d finally found peace in that hell, and it was all undone. He was back to the beginning. He couldn’t go through it again. He’d rather die, first, even knowing what death entailed. Maybe if he died now, he’d be beyond Bendy’s reach.

Snufkin got unsteadily to his feet. He’d throw himself down the hole the ink machine was in, or down stairs, or — or —

He doubled over, over taken by a fit of coughing. Something wet and phlegmy spattered into his paw.

Snufkin stared down at the single tooth he’d coughed up, black ink splashed across it. No, no, please, no. How was this happening? He wasn’t anywhere near the machine.███ felt like himself, a sensation he’d missed so much. He wasn’t one of those things. He was█’t.

“W█at…”

“What what?” Bendy asked, grin big a██ malicious as he sauntered over. “I can’t hear you right now,” he said, tapping his head. “So you’re gonna have to actually speak up.”

More ink drib█led█out of his mouth, his nose and ears and eyes, mixing with his tears. His insides clenched painfully. “What did you ██ to me? H█w — the machine —“

“The machine’s just window dressing, Snuf. I told you you were mine the moment you came in, and I ain’t no liar. This whole place is a machine, and I’m the one pullin’ the levers, pressin’ the buttons.”

Thinking w█s becoming difficul███verything felt liquid, contained in a thin layer of flesh. Snufkin forced himself to walk █ few more steps and clawed nonsensically at a door to get away from Bendy. His nails bent and broke off. He left streaks of ink on the wood and just couldn’t stop scratching. Skin rubbed off, bone dra█ged down the door.██

Bendy watched with glee painted██n his flat, white face█

It wasn’t over. It wasn’t over. It ██████ver. Never neve███████. All Snufkin could taste was ███, could ████ w█s ██k. No peace, no escape,█no ████. Hi█ li███w██ ent████ Bendy’s█ ███ █ ██ i██ th███ ██. ███████████████████████endy████████████████████████████████████ndyBe███████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

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